


A Tender Hand

by vain_flower



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Any Gender Hunter, Bottom Hunter, F/F, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, POV Second Person, Top Plain Doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vain_flower/pseuds/vain_flower
Summary: You're welcome to use whatever you find. Even the doll, should it please you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a challenge to myself, and hopefully people will read and enjoy without the second person pov throwing them off. The goal was to write a second person smut fic featuring a genderless, silent protagonist.

“What is it you desire?” the doll says, as it always does, its soft voice drawing you out of your thoughts.

You think maybe you knew the answer, at one point. Any desire now is buried under the frantic pounding of your heart. Rest, you think. To pass just an hour without accumulating blood and grit beneath your boots. You wear gloves, but as the night wears on, you think your hands are looking distinctly more red each time you remove them. You just want to feel clean again. You say none of these things.

The doll tilts its head on its long neck as if you have, but it makes no remark. 

“Good hunter,” it says finally, when the silence has dragged on for too long, and you’re not sure how long you’ve been standing in front of it, silently staring at a spot in the vague, gray distance. “This dream is a safe place, and I would help ease some of your distress, should you wish it.”

You hesitate, quite glad for the cloth over your face. You’re not sure what expression might be taking form there, but you’d rather it stay covered. The doll’s words make you think of what Gehrman had said, about using the tools of the dream however you see fit. _Even the doll_. 

You observe it carefully out of the corner of your eye. It is a very good approximation of a pretty human girl, carved with a serene expression and huge luminous eyes that track your movements. You can see the appeal of the doll’s form and wonder how many hunters have… used the doll before you. The thought is not a particularly pleasant one.

When it is clear that you do not have a response, the doll moves towards you. This is not the first time that it strikes you just how tall it is. From the first moment you entered the dream and found it, inanimate, resting in the grass, its unnatural size has given you pause.

Huge and not quite human, as it nears you there is a terrible moment that seems to stretch on and on, where you can only see rent flesh, yellowed teeth, and the terrible dull edge of an axe descending towards your neck. You reel back, ready for the killing blow of one of the bestial huntsmen that haunt the streets of Yharnam.

The doll stops, posed and unnaturally still. One of its hands is slightly lifted as though it were about to reach out and touch you.

“I will not harm you,” the doll says, but you can’t calm your heart. 

It has never given an indication that it wishes you ill will, but it is a hunter’s tool, and surely must be as deadly as the rest of them. You look up into its face, and wonder how it could possibly help you.

It draws in close again and this time you let it finish its motion, and it draws your cap from your head. It falls to the ground with a rustle of fabric and grass. You don’t hear it, because the doll is touching you, fingertips to your face, and the only thing you can hear is the rush of your own blood.

“Most hunters are not so shy in their desire,” the doll remarks. Its voice sounds uncertain, but it’s hard to say. “I was built by you, to fulfil your needs, whatever they may be.”

It feels like the bottom has dropped out of your stomach, like falling from a great height. You need to put a stop to this, but you can't unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth. 

The doll strokes cool fingertips across your skin a moment longer, as though soothing a hound, before her hand snakes to the back of your head and grabs a fistful of hair. It draws your head back so that your neck is uncomfortably bared to it. You squirm in its grasp, but it is just as strong as you feared it would be. You'd have to rip your own hair out at this point to be free of its hold.

"This is what you want, isn't it?" the doll asks. 

Your left arm jerks up and you fire off a useless shot with your pistol that flies off between the trees. The doll never lets up on the grip on your hair, but its other hand grips your arm, and its slender fingers find the tender meat of your inner wrist, digging into the pressure point there until your firearm falls useless to the ground.

Your cane is no good this close, and anyway, you are too panicked to do anything but clutch with both hands at the grip that holds you immobile.

The doll has released your arm, but your fists are very nearly useless. You don't know what the doll is made of, but it feels heavy and solid under your strikes, more like wood than flesh.

The doll's free hand is at its own throat, and it is undoing the elaborate red jabot tied around its neck.

You can feel hair tearing from your scalp as you struggle to break free. The doll releases you suddenly, and you fall, shoulder glancing against one of the headstones. You cry out, immediately feeling a rush of heat that’s become too familiar to you during your time in Yharnam; you’re bleeding. 

Before you can so much as roll away, your arm is wrenched behind you with supernatural strength. Your other arm is forced back as well, and your wrists are caught up in what can only be the long red fabric of the doll's jabot.

You snarl uselessly, feeling your blood seeping out of the wound on your shoulder to stain your cloak and the ground beneath you.

You do not know what happens if you die in the dream. It seems unlikely that you will wake again if such a thing happens, and you wait for the killing blow from the doll.

There is a sharp, sudden pain, but one that you are familiar with; the doll has injected a blood vial into you, and you can feel the itch of your skin knitting itself back together at your shoulder, and the blood slows to a trickle.

"My apologies, good hunter," the doll says, voice unaffected as ever. "I said I would not hurt you, but I could not prevent the damage resulting from your resistance."

You cannot quite see it from where you lay face down in the grass, but its grip has softened to a caress through your hair. You're not sure which is worse.

"You know that you can find peace in this dream, when the waking world threatens to rend you asunder. Still, you carry your pain with you, though you desire nothing more than its release."

You say nothing, and you try to get your breathing back under control. The grass beneath your face is wet, the scent of it almost too sweet, like something starting to decay.

You find yourself rolled over, and you shift, trying to find a way to relieve the pressure on your bound arms beneath you.

“Can you escape from this?” the doll asks. It is kneeling above you, glass eyes watching your own.

You jerk your head to the side in the negative.

One of the doll’s hands brushes over the front of your coat, skipping its fingers lightly over the buttons.

“You don't want to," the doll remarks, voice barely above a whisper. "Strong for such a long time; you want to be carried, if just for a moment."

The noise you make in response is half panicked exhale, half garbled prayer, and the doll's hand settles firmly against your side.

The doll leans in, very close, and you think it means to kiss you. "Let me care for you," it murmurs instead, "as I have cared for hunters of the past." 

You think you can feel breath ghosting against your face as it speaks, in much the same way you can feel cool air when standing just outside a cave. It is nothing like human lovers you have taken in the past, and the alien nature of it sends a chill up your spine.

You tilt your head back. Surrender is frightening, like standing at a precipice and looking down, letting the dizzy rush of vertigo overtake you. 

The doll’s hands go to the fastenings of your cloak. Though there is no urgency in its motions, the buckles and buttons of your garb are undone sooner than you would like. It does not make any motions to remove them further, leaving fabric bunched about your arms.

There is just the thin white fabric of your undershirt left. 

The doll does nothing, for a moment. It merely touches you, again, one of its hands flattening out over your ribs, underneath which your heart hammers uncontrollably. With a sick lurch of your stomach, you realize that its skin has no warmth of its own.

You barely dare to breathe as the doll begins to undo the tiny white buttons of your undershirt, baring your chest to it.

It has been a long time since anyone has seen you this way, and it is hard to tell what the doll might be thinking. Its face gives nothing away, but the fingers are gentle, touching each little scar with reverence. 

You make a small noise as it reaches for the fastenings of your trousers, but you’re pretty sure you’re past the point of no return now.

You think you must look ridiculous, bound and panting, shirt half open, trousers caught around your thighs, but the doll says nothing. It does not mock you for all of your apparent weakness.

You close your eyes, for a moment, but that's worse, to not be able to see the doll’s precise movements. Too easy to lose yourself in nightmares.

So you meet the doll’s eyes, and you don't know if it would be better or worse to see some sort of human judgement there, rather than the impassive look you find yourself met with.

Its cool fingers have warmed to your skin, but you still gasp as they press between your legs. You cannot spread them any further, thanks to the trap of cloth about your thighs, and it shames you that you want to.

It shames you that your blood pulses faster at the doll’s unreadable expression, the way it watches and touches.

You feel like a pinned insect, like one of those poor damned bastards you sent, unthinking, to Iosefka. 

You cry out, weakly, as the doll learns from watching, just how you like to be touched.

It gathers you in its long arms, and you press your inflamed face against its cool, white neck. Its own skirts have ridden up as it has knelt beside you, letting you glimpse its jointed knees and pale white thighs the color of bone.

One of those white thighs slides between your legs, and you let your head fall back.

You can barely breathe now, the air cloyingly sweet, as you roll your hips helplessly, chasing your own pleasure against the doll’s smooth thigh.

You want to close your eyes, to hide yourself somehow from the doll’s piercing gaze, but you can’t help but gaze up at it as the sweetness between your thighs peaks, turning nearly sharp enough to cut.

The doll holds you through it, stroking your hair, your face, and you are finally grateful for the cool touch of its hands as your body tries to remember how to breathe.

You can see yourself reflected in the doll’s eyes, as you lie in the damp grass, catching your breath. Somehow, instead of humiliating, it is beguiling, to see your own skin flushed, your mouth open and panting, lips swollen from where you’ve bitten back your cries. Seeing how small you look there, the streets of Yharnam feel very far away.

The doll leans in, presses its mouth to yours. There is no give to it, nothing human about the contact, the cavern of its mouth killing instantly the small noises you relinquish to it.

**Author's Note:**

> There was someone in the Outlast fandom who was writing a goddamn good second person pov fic and then they dropped off the face of the planet. Like, deleted their account and the fic, and I hope, wherever they are, they're doing great. This fic is for them, for making me see the benefit of second person pov.


End file.
